Kochi biennale facilitates global art dialogue: Kerala Governor

India’s top event to shape new generation of artists, says Sathasivam

Kochi, Mar 29: The Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) has created a sustainable platform for international dialogue and enrichment of contemporary art, Kerala Governor Justice (retd) P Sathasivam said today.

“It has, in the process, raised Indian art to a global level,” he said while delivering a special address at the closing ceremony of the second Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) which will formally conclude on Sunday evening with the lowering of the flag at the main Aspinwall House venue.

Noting that the 108-day festival has mainly exhibited 100 works by 94 artistes from 30 countries, the Governor said a Students’ and Children’s biennale held as part of KMB’14 had the potential to shape a new generation of top-class artists from Kerala and rest of the country.

“The word ‘biennale’ has now become very popular in this state even as it has origins in the Italian language where it simply means any event that happens every other year,” he told the packed gathering at Ernakulam’s Durbar Hall Ground, where Delhi-based Ska Vengers band later performed a lively reggae concert that spanned two hours and succeeded a dance show by Jazz Masters.

 

Kerala Governor Justice P Sathasivam addresses the Kochi-Muziris Biennale closing ceremony at Durbar Hall Ground in Ernakulam on March 28 evening. Seated (from left): KBF Secretary Riyas Komu, curator Jitish Kallat, MLAs Thomas Issac, Dominic Presentation, Culture Minister K C Joseph, Excise Minister K Babu, Kochi Mayor Tony Chammany, GCDA chief N Venugopal and KBF president Bose Krishnamachari.

The closing ceremony, which was presided over by Kerala Culture Minister K C Joseph amid the presence of his cabinet colleague K Babu, was also addressed by legislators Dr Thomas Isaac MLA and Dominic Presentation. Other dignitaries included Kochi Corporation Mayor Tony Chammany and Greater Kochi Development Authority Chairman N Venugopal, besides Kochi Biennale Foundation President Bose Krishnamachari, secretary Riyas Komu and KMB’14 curator Jitish Kallat.

In his presidential address, Mr Joseph expressed happiness that a deluge of criticism that plagued the first edition of the biennale in 2012 had “completely vanished” two years later by when the ongoing KMB began in December 12, 2014.

“The biennale is a big blessing to Kerala; its aesthetics are a major exposure to its people,” he added.

Dr Issac said a rising middle-income group in the contemporary economy would mean a gradual surge in investment in art and encouragement to the world of culture.

Mr Chammany and Mr Venugopal also spoke.

Komu, in his welcome address, said KMB, with its manifold rise in use of public space, has change people’s general notions about contemporary art.

Also, India’s only biennale has managed to clear a cloud over its British-narrated history by bringing in artworks that invoke momentous episodes from the country’s past, he added.

Kallat recalled the challenges he took up ahead of the biennale as its artistic director, while Krishnamachari, while proposing thanks, said the curatorial theme of ‘Whorled Explorations’ was a “runaway hit” from day one of this biennale slated to conclude tomorrow.

The Ska Vengers concert, staged amid strobe lights and loud cheers from the crowd, was powered by its young artistes, blending Ska rythms with elements of dub, punk, jazz and rap.

Incidentally, KMB’14 showcased the richness of Kerala’s traditional ensembles at its opening show. That was at Fort Kochi’s Parade Ground, where renowned chenda maestro Peruvanam Kuttan Marar led a two-hour show of 300-plus artistes on the state’s ethnic drums, pipes, horns and gongs, ahead of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy inaugurating the second edition of India’s only biennale.

Art Thoughts Trigger at Concluding Lecture Sessions of Biennale

Kochi, Mar 28: The Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) concluded its famed “History Now” and “Let’s Talk” series at the 108-day exhibition by triggering thoughts about art as a positive intervention in learning process and sharing the aesthetic journey of the only artist who figured in both editions of the country’s only biennale by far.

Scholar Shaji Jacob speaking on Malayalam novel “Sugandhi Enna Andal Devanayaki” by T D Ramakrishnan (sitting) at a book-reading session in Aspinwall House on Friday evening as part of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. The others seen are translator Priya S Nair and researcher Arya.

Valsan Koorma Kolleri, whose works ‘No Death’ and ‘How Goes the Enemy’ captured public imagination at the 2012 and ongoing KMB respectively, said it was “not money but attitude of the organizers and artists” that helped India host both the biennales in this city also known for its constant trysts with contemporaneity.

“I had told the top organizers here last time that you need to host a second edition of it to be really called biennale—else I’ll have to call it ‘Mono-le’,” he recalled in the final Let’s Talk show Friday evening, amid peals of laughter from the audience at the main Aspinwall House venue. “Now that we got it, this biennale will continue for long.”

Reeling out 200-odd visuals of select sculptures, sketches and paintings he did in the past four decades, the 62-year-old artist from North Malabar said a bit of each artwork could always leave the viewer “hidden, unsaid or unintelligible” to retain the curiosity quotient. In any case, fine art should be a compulsory subject at the primary education in India,” he added.

Sculptor-painter Valsan Koorma Kolleri addressing
the final "Let's Talk" session of Kochi-Muziris Biennale at
Aspinwall Pavilion in Fort Kochi on Friday evening.

“I practice art to equip myself enjoy others’ works. It also helps me keep fit—mentally and physically,” maintained Valsan, who has set up a studio and art institute at his native Pattiam near Kannur, having studied at École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris,Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda and the Government College of Fine Arts, Chennai.

He said KMB’14, which is ending on Sunday, gave him the “luxury” of interacting with a cosmopolitan crowd in Kochi for the past six months of his stay. “I could have put up my installations and left the place, but it would have deprived me of the pleasure of knowing more about the people here,” he added at the talk with biennale officials Riyas Komu and Jitish Kallat in the audience.

Earlier in the afternoon, Mumbai’s Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) presented the details of its novel project ‘Vimaya’ being conceived in collaboration with Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited.

Vimaya, which means exchange, facilitates designing of artifacts in such a way for creating mindful interaction through the use of ‘performative expressions’ in the context of an organisational transformation process, according to the session’s speakers that included TISS Centre for Social and Organnisational Leadership Chairperson Tata Dr P Vijayakumar and HPCL Deputy General Manager (Capacity Building) Dr Ashis Sen besides artist Pawan Tiwari.

An evening session saw the reading of T D Ramakrishnan’s recent novel “Sugandhi Enna Andal Devanayaki” by the author. Literature scholar Shaji Jacob, translator Priya S Nair and researcher Arya also spoke about the 2014 book that unfolds the travails of Sri Lankans with focus on the LTTE-era civil war in the island-nation.

Works on sea, ships & voyage add to biennale’s ‘Kochi spirit’

Kochi, March 26: In his work at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB), Shumon Ahmed comes up with an ode to a graveyard for ships. The landscape portrayed is desolate, for it is from a defunct harbour at Chittagong in his native Bangladesh.

Bangladeshi artist Shumon Ahmed’s ‘Metal Graves’ at Aspinwall House

The story that 37-year-old Ahmed narrates is evidently gloomy, totally contrasting with Kochi which boasts of a thriving harbour and bustling water transportation. Yet, the poignant visuals in ‘Metal Graves’ at KMB’14 main venue Aspinwall House relate eminently to the general ethos of the biennale city with its port, shipyard, jetties and sprawling water all around.

In fact, KMB’14 has a quite a few main exhibits that feature images of sea-waves, ships and harbour—coming in contexts that are contemporary or historical. The plots may or may not be directly related to Kochi, but they are dense with sights and sound that typical of this city whose evolution in the past seven centuries owes a lot to its maritime engagements.

Interestingly, this relation has worked the other way round as well. KMB’14, for instance, has an overseas artist for whom the oceans surfaces by their motherland is “indistinguishably similar” to the sights around Kochi. Says Sri Lankan Muhanned Cader, whose Aspinwall work is titled ‘Galle Fort; Fort Kochi’: “The Arabian Sea I saw in Kochi merged in my mind with familiar landscapes such as that of the historic Galle Fort area of my country.”

In short, it is this “ambivalence” that has prompted Cader, 49, to “free identity from notions of fixity linked to land”.

Farther from the tropical waters, America-born Neha Choksi is seen rowing a boat made of ice—until it melts, releasing her into the water’s womb. Named ‘Iceboat’, the 2012 video, also on a loop at Aspinwall, essays Choksi “embracing my surrender”, going by the words of the artist, now 42 and settled in Mumbai.

KMB’14 artistic director Jitish Kallat notes that the nearly 14-minute film, when viewed in Kochi, has the local sea breeze adding another layer to it. “It exhumes narratives of doomed voyages of the past, the many sunken expeditions that define a coast as much as the one that made it,” notes the curator, who is an internationally-reputed artist, also living in the western Indian metropolis.

Giji Scaria's ‘Chronicle of the Shores Foretold’at Pepper House

The “doom stories” associated with voyages find depiction at the hands of a Malayali in a venue not far from Fort Kochi’s Aspinwall. At Pepper House, Travancore-born Gigi Scaria’s metallic installation refers to a medieval-era legend of an east-bound European ship sinking midway while bringing a large bell for a church in Kerala.

Today, Delhi-settled Scaria’s KMB’14 work titled ‘Chronicle of the Shores Foretold’ is seen against the backdrop of massive vessels and small boats plying aside the new-age Vallarpadom Container Terminal, thus serving as a reminder of fascinatingly changing times.

The region’s traditional architecture, including that making boats, finds representation in the biennale work of another Keralite, this time a nonagenarian. K M Vasudevan namboodiri’s sketches along a corridor of Aspinwall teem with colonial-era relics such as inland waterways and country rafts.

Even Aji V N, a Netherlands-settled Malayali, has one of his KMB’14 charcoal-on-paper works portraying a frothy sea. As if lending movement to this dark image is a part of the biennale work by US-born Andrew Ananda Voogel, whose ‘Kalapani: The Jahajis’ Middle Passage’ has a brooding video showing an abstract, dream-like vision of waves crashing a coastline, lending it “an intensely meditative, almost therapeutic atmosphere”, according to Kallat.

Historically relevant to Kochi is N Pushpala’s KMB’14 work that recreates an 1898 painting by Portugese Jose Veloso Salgado. Depicting invader-sailor Vasco da Gama’s first meeting with the Zamorin of Calicut, the archival inkjet print has in its backdrop the Portugese fleet of ships, which also come in standalone focus as well.

At David Hall, another KMB’14 venue in Fort Kochi, Guido van der Werve 10-minute film shows the Dutch artist in a gulf near Finland walking towards the viewer on ice-sheets, covering the water while a massive ice-breaking ship follows his trail.

Mattacherry’s CSI Bungalow has a video showing three workers erecting a scaffold on a beachfront. Titled ‘Construction Site’, the 93-minute film by Londoner American Mark Wallinger is “a painting in motion, wind and an odd ship that slides across the ocean at a distance”, notes the curator.

Netherlands-based Malayali artist Aji V N work Untitled-II at Aspinwall House

The vessel on the sea, again, comes into special focus at Aspinwall, where Vietnamese Dinh Q Le shows uses a broken fishing boat in his work that draws from own story—to evoke the trauma of numerous people from across history who had to embark on treacherous voyages while fleeing violence.

Jerusalem-born Khalil Rabah’s ‘Biproduct’ displays a print that shows an aircraft carrier in the shape of Gaza Strip conceptualised by the 54-year-old artist who lives in Palestine’s Ramallah.

Albanian Adrian Paci’s Aspinwall work films an intercontinental expedition where a group of Chinese carvers use their boat as a workshop. “This,” notes Kallat, “evokes a vision of the earth itself journeying through space on its own voyage around the sun.”

बिनाले कलाकार ने युद्ध और भव्य वास्तुकला का संबंध जुनून से जोड़ा

ईरानी कलाकार शाहपोर पोउयान का इंस्टालेशन सत्ता की संरचना को उजागर करता है

कोच्चि, 24 मार्च: भव्य वास्तुकला रचनात्मक होती है और युद्ध विनाशकारी होता है, लेकिन कोच्चि - मुजिरिस बिनाले (केएमबी) में ईरानी कलाकार शाहपोर पोउयान का मानना है कि ‘‘जुनून एक  ऐसा तत्व’’ है जो इन दोनों को जोडता है।

Shahpour Pouyan's work at Durbar Hall,

कोच्चि-मुजिरिस बिनाले के एक प्रदर्शनी स्थल दरबार हॉल गैलरी में ईरानी कलाकार की कृति के तीन हिस्से हैं: ‘स्थिर जीवन’, ‘अकल्पनीय विचार’ और ईरानी पर्वत ‘‘दामावंद का शिखर’’। ‘स्थिर जीवन’ के तहत प्रथम विश्व युद्ध के दौरान जब्त किये गये जर्मन गोला-बारूद के एक फोटोगाफ को चीनी मिट्टी में उतारा गया है। ‘अकल्पनीय विचार’ में विभिन्न स्थानीय निवासियों से सत्ता का स्थापत्य निहित हैं और ‘दामावंद का शिखर’ ईरान की सबसे ऊंची पर्वत की एक उल्टी पेंटिंग है जिसके जरिये परमाणु विस्फोट के गहन विश्लेशण का आह्वान किया गया है।

मध्य पूर्व, यूरोप और अमेरिका में व्यापक रूप से अपनी कृतियों का प्रदर्शित करने वाले पोउयान कहते हैं, ‘‘यह जुनून ही है जो मनुष्य को युद्ध करने के लिए और साथ ही साथ खुद के लिये स्मारक बनाने के लिए प्रेरित करता है। इसके अलावा, गोलियों का आकार गुरुत्वाकर्षण तथा शक्ति के आधिपत्य को प्रदर्शित करता है। मुझे लगता है कि हमारी प्रकृति में कुछ ऐसा है जो इन आकृतियों को आक्रामक स्मारकीय रूपों में होने के लिए मदद करता है।’’

पोउयान कहते हैं यह थोड़ा मजेदार है कि यह इंस्टालेशन ‘‘परिदृश्य’’ तथा स्थिर जीवन जैसे क्रांतिकारी आधुनिक विषयों को सुझाता है। यह इंस्टालेशन संयुक्त अरब अमीरात की राजधानी अबू धाबी में आयोजित एक प्रदर्शनी के दौरान बिनाले, 2014 के क्यूरेटर जितिश कलात की नजर में आयी। पोउयान कहते हैं कि ‘‘स्थिर जीवन’’ में उन्होंने गोलियों के फोटो को त्रिआयामी आकार में पुनर्निर्मित किया है जो इस बात का स्मरण दिलाता है कि 18 वीं एवं 19 वीं शताब्दी के स्वामी अभी भी हैं।’’

Shahpour Pouyan's work at Durbar Hall,

35 वर्षीय कलाकार पोउयान कहते हैं कि वास्तुकला कृति ‘‘अकल्पनीय विचार’’ ‘‘मनुष्यो के लिये ऐसे भव्य स्मारकों’’ की आवष्यकता को सुझाता है, चाहे वे गुंबद हो, चाहे रोमन देवता हो या हिटलर के जर्मेनियों के अधूरे गुंबद हों। वह कहते हैं, ‘‘यह सभ्यता के अवशेषों के परिदृष्य हैं और हमारे धरोहर के गाइड हैं।

पोउयान कहते हैं कि वह कलाकार से कहीं अधिक पुरातत्ववेत्ता हैं जो ‘‘विषमताओं के संग्रहकर्ता, के रूप में अपनी रूचि से मिलती-जुलती दिलचस्प वस्तुओं को खोजने के लिये सभी तरह के सभी ऐतिहासिक सामग्रियों का निरीक्षण करता है।’’

युद्ध में उनकी रुचि 1980 के दशक के आठ साल के लंबे ईरान-इराक युद्ध के दौरान सैन्य सामग्रियों, हवाई जहाज और युद्ध मशीनों की तस्वीरों और ब्लूप्रिंट के संपर्क में आने के साथ ईरान में एक सैन्य परिवार में जागृत हुई। तेहरान और न्यूयॉर्क में रहने वाले पोउयान कहते हैं, ‘‘यह विभिन्न युद्धों के बारे में पढ़ने और इन पर शोध करने और ऐतिहासिक सामग्रियों को इकट्ठा करने की लत की शुरुआत थी। सबसे प्रभावशाली युद्ध दोनों विश्व युद्ध थे। मैं इन दोनों युद्धों की महिमा और इन युद्धों ने पृथ्वी को जिस प्रकार प्रभावित किया, इन चीजों से काफी प्रभावित रहा हूँ। मैं कम से कम उन 5 करोड़ लोगों जिनकी इन युद्धों में मौत हो गयी और उन्हें कोई प्रसिद्धि हासिल नहीं हुई, को अनदेखा नहीं कर सकता। लेकिन मनुष्य युद्ध के बिना नहीं रह सकते और प्रौद्योगिकी तक पहुंच और युद्ध सामग्रियों के अधिक उत्पादन और मनुष्य के लिए आसानी से इनके उपलब्ध होने के कारण युद्ध भविष्य में और अधिक प्रभावशाली हो जाएगा।’’

Shahpour Pouyan's work at Durbar Hall,

कलात कहते हैं, ‘‘इसमें कोई आश्चर्य नहीं है कि पोउयान की कृति इंस्टालेशन की मंत्रगुग्ध कर देने वाली सुंदरता की मदद से और युद्ध के अव्यवस्थित इतिहास के प्रति दर्शकों का ध्यान आकर्शित कर संघर्ष की रूपरेखा के साथ दर्शकों को जोड़े रखती है।’’

पोउयान का मानना है कि भारत उनके युद्ध से प्रेरित काम के बारे में संवाद करने की ‘उत्कृष्ट जगह’ है। इस सप्ताहांत में समाप्त होने वाले बिनाले के बारे में वह कहते हैं, ‘‘युद्ध, हमलों और स्मारकों से समृद्ध इतिहास के साथ यह भारत में आकर्षण का केन्द्र है। मैं यहाँ आकर और फोर्ट कोच्चि के विशेष ऐतिहासिक संदर्भ में अपनी कृति को पेश करने का मौका मिलने पर बहुत खुश हूँ।’’

Biennale to conclude with high-spirits concert by Ska Vengers

             Kerala Governor to address March 28 closing ceremony at Durbar Hall Ground

Kochi, Mar 23: Into its last week and just through with the performing-art segment, Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) will stage a lively reggae concert in its grand closing ceremony to be held this Saturday evening—a day before the conclusion of the 108-day festival that has so far brought in more than five lakh visitors.

Well-known Delhi-based band Ska Vengers will present a two-hour show at Ernakulam’s Durbar Hall Ground, which will be the venue for the finale that will feature a special address by Kerala Governor Justice (retd) P Sathasivam, who will be honouring patrons and supporters of the Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF).

The March 28 function, slated to begin at 5.30 pm, will be attended by an array of state ministers and MPs and legislators from the state, besides Kochi Corporation Mayor Tony Chammany and Greater Kochi Development Authority Chairman N Venugopal, according to KBF which is hosting KMB’14 featuring 100 main artworks by 94 artists from 30 countries displayed in a total of eight venues.

KMB’14 artistic director Jitish Kallat, who is the curator of the exhibition that began on December 12 last year, will talk at the ceremony, where KBF Secretary Riyas Komu will deliver the welcome address and the foundation’s president Bose Krishnamachari will propose thanks.

The 2009-formed Ska Vengers is known for blending Ska rythms with lements of dub, punk, jazz and rap, making it refreshingly different music that is not just energetic but highly danceable. Teeming with youngsters, it has Samara Chopra and Delhi Sultanate on the vocals, besides Stefan ‘Flexi’ Kaye (organ/percussion), Raghav ‘Diggy’ Dang (guitars), Tony Guinard (bass), Rie Ona (alto saxophone) and Shirish Malhotra (tenor Saxophone).

Incidentally, KMB’14 showcased the richness of Kerala’s traditional ensembles at its opening show. That was at Fort Kochi’s vintage Parade Ground, where renowned chenda maestro Peruvanam Kuttan Marar led a two-hour show of 300-plus artistes on the state’s ethnic drums, pipes, horns and gongs, ahead of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy inaugurating the second edition of India’s only biennale.

KBF estimates a total attendance of 5,00,000 visitors at the second biennale, pointing out that this has been a marked increment from the previous edition’s total of close to 4,00,000.

Besides its main exhibition, KMB’14 has been hosting a string of programmes besides partner and collateral projects. They include a 12-week film festival, Students Biennale, Children’s Biennale, lectures (under History Now and Let’s Talk series) and a residency exhibition, besides a performing arts segment that got over last evening with a threatre festival, a day after a unique literary meet that traced the language histories and contemporaneity of the region.

Diamond’ made of 10,000 blood slides

Artist Prashant Pandey’s installation at Biennale seduces and shocks viewers

Kochi, Mar 22: It is seductive and shocking, mesmerizing and unsettling — in equal measure.  It seduces your senses from a distance and shocks your sensibility as you near it — a huge sparkling diamond made of 10,000 discarded blood slides strung together by stainless steel thread and neatly stacked in a brick-like manner.

Artist Prashant Pandey’s installation, ‘Artha’, at the Kochi Muziris Biennale (KMB) site Aspinwall House, is conceptually a phenomenal artwork with multilayered connotations. The Sanskrit word Artha refers both to the pursuit of material wealth and the quest for meaning while diamond is a universal symbol of wealth, power and vanity, he says.

Explaining the central theme of his work, he says ‘Artha’ recalls and recounts the countless sacrifices made during successive colonizations and the quest for land, domination, wealth and power. It hints at the way in which colonialism intertwined religion with economics. It raises question about the price of progress and the relationship between worldly possessions and the purpose of life.

Using discarded materials as a medium to form art objects may appear a bit of oddity as Pandey hails from a Rajasthan family of sculptors, who chisel out gods and goddesses from marble.

“As I hail from a family of marble sculptors in Jaipur, I used to play with blast stones and waste marble chips after the sculptures were chiselled. This is how my fascination for discarded materials was born,” says the 1984-born artist.

“My desire has always been to work on the changing ideologies of human emotions. Looking at how we transition from love to hate and back to love again - a philosophy which I often follow in my oeuvre. I feel it is my responsibility as an artist to look at byproducts of human activity and to regenerate that waste in order to create something new.”

Prashant Pandey, Arth at Aspinwall House

For his KMB installation, Pandey says he went to Pattanam as part of his research trip to Kochi and observed people digging and trying to find traces of ancient history. “My interest lies in working with memories and reminiscences of the past. I wanted to use this to represent the history of this beautiful site which is why I used waste blood slides. Blood signifies both life and death, glory and sacrifices in the history of Kochi. ‘Artha’ is an effort at recollecting all memories together in one form.” 

The artist collected discarded blood slides from unknown people, mostly from Rajasthan. “It contains some of my blood slides too,” he points out. “I chose a sculptural installation in the shape of a diamond, as the form depicts age-old history, excavation and material wealth.” 

KMB’14 curator Jitish Kallat says, “In stark contrast to his family tradition of chipping away at stone to create (sacred) statues of gods and goddesses, Pandey works with that which is discarded and often ostensibly ‘impure’. He is known for recycling objects that are past their use value — from marble blast and chunks of tar to visceral rejects like urine, sweat and blood — to create artworks that question cultural notions of utility and waste.”

Prashant Pandey, Arth at Aspinwall House

In creating a likeness of one of the most precious commodities in the world in blood slides brickwork, Pandey creates a juxtaposition that evokes multiple connections between money, violence and mortality. The work acts as an unsettling interruption, forcing a confrontation with the sheer corporeality of our existence, he notes.

Pandey says the Kochi Muziris Biennale is one of the best things to have happened to him so far. “It is the means for any artist to express himself or herself freely without any boundaries or commercial constraints. It is a vehicle to reach a larger audience; it has helped artists to express their ideologies in an unrestrained manner. I feel proud to be a part of this historical event and thank everyone who rallied behind to make this possible.”